http://www.moralityofprofit.com An open discourse on the morality of profit Sat, 21 Aug 2010 12:34:51 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 http://www.moralityofprofit.com/land-labor-and-life-nature-and-the-evolving-morality-of-the-market/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=land-labor-and-life-nature-and-the-evolving-morality-of-the-market http://www.moralityofprofit.com/land-labor-and-life-nature-and-the-evolving-morality-of-the-market/#comments Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:10:04 +0000 CRimmer http://www.moralityofprofit.com/?p=438 “Profits have always been moral in the sense that they have always been guided by some moral framework.  Throughout history, that moral framework by which we critique the economy has shifted from theological to political to the free market.  Whatever ethical rubrics we choose, the question for our globalized and digitalized age becomes, “what kind of moral framework will we employ as a fundamental means to justify our acquisition and use of profit?”.  We must not assume that any economic system is ‘natural’.  Economics were created by people for means of sharing.  It is therefore up to us to design a system in which profits serve people and lending serves life, not vice versa.  If it is to be moral, then the market must be embedded in a relationship to the human and biotic sphere and respond to its needs. An embedded, relational economy would be one in which just prices and just wages are related to those who need work; in which scarcity does not promote risk-averse profiteering but profit mitigation leads to abundant sharing; in which wealth and property are redefined not only according to what we have made but what has natural, intrinsic value; in which nature – land, labor and living things – are not commodified to serve wealth accumulation but profits are used to sustain conditions in which life can truly flourish.”

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